At present, a broadcasting station or the like provides a viewer with various content, and a technique whereby content optimal to a viewer from among various content is under research. Patent Document 1 discloses a technique whereby content selected in accordance with the viewer's past viewing history is selected and recommended to the viewer. The program selection device of Patent Document 1 calculates the viewer's preferences based on information of the viewer switching from viewing one content to viewing a different content. The content selected in accordance with these preferences is then recommended to the viewer. Through this, the viewer can receive content recommendations that reflect his/her own preferences, decreasing the chance of the viewer missing content she/he wishes to view.
Furthermore, Patent Document 2 discloses a scheme for introducing information of content recommended by one viewer to another viewer. Through such a scheme, a viewer receives introductions of content recommended by another person, thereby widening the range of content for that viewer.    [Patent Document 1] JP H10-257405A    [Patent Document 2] JP 2004-207897A
However, with Patent Document 1, the introduction of content is carried out based on the viewing history of the viewer, such as the history of content selection and the history of recording performed by the viewer; thus, the range of introduced content tends to be gradually constrained. For example, assume that the viewer views only a specific piece of content, and does not view other pieces of content such as current events. In a case such as this, if the introduction is based on the viewing history of the viewer, the current event content will not be selected as content to be introduced to the viewer regardless of how topical the current event content is. Therefore, only the same types of content are recommended, narrowing the range of content viewed by the viewer.
Furthermore, with Patent Document 2, although the range of content expands through the reception of content introductions from other people, the viewer can only accept content provided from the other people in a one-sided manner. In other words, the viewer has no choice regarding the selection of the introducer that recommends content. Moreover, there is no useful information provided for the viewer to select the introducer. Further still, there is no useful information for the viewer to select the content, such as whether or not the introduced content is current, whether it is topical, and so on.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a technique whereby it is possible to provide information for selecting the content and the introducer thereof.